Dear Red Arrow

It is with much pleasure I travel from Edmonton to Calgary on your motorcoach. It even has wireless internet capabilities, which makes it simple to maintain correspondence. However, I cannot condone the choice of film on this particular journey.

Across the Universe? Really? What would make you think anybody with ears or eyes could enjoy that film? The brutal sodomy performed on the Beatles’ beautiful music? The clichéd plot and characters? Bono?

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the songs enough. It’s that I love the songs so much I can’t bear to witness them used to prop up such an overwrought script.

I just wanted to see a bad sports movie during my three hour bus ride. Is Mighty Ducks too much to ask?

Sincerely,

Fergis T. McGillicuddy

Five Fantastic Fergis Facts

1. Fergis wishes to die in a plane crash piloted by John Travolta, but only if he uses the intercom to utter his final words: “Oh my god!”

2. Fergis thinks it is beautiful when fat people have children.

3. Fergis’ favourite historical dictator is Chairman Mao. Coincidentally, Chairman Mao is also his favourite name for a cat. Chairman Meow is his second favourite cat name. Steve is his third.

4. Fergis is unable to add prime numbers in his head.

5. Fergis always cries at the end of Jurassic Park.

Dear Visitor 60,000!

While you may be simply visiting here for the celebrity gossip, I ‘d like to offer you a personalized message nonetheless.

Here it is:

Thank you Visitor 60,000. I wanted to do this for Visitor 50,000 but I forgot and then the numbers ballooned to limits not thought possible. I had to be patient. You see Visitor 60,000, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.

It’s been a fine year for me. I’ve written meaningful correspondence with various objects and people, earned a pair of robot boots and a sack of gems, built a homunculus, killed a homunculus etc. etc.

This is well and good, but sadly something is amiss within the meaty cockles of my chest. I’m not sure why I feel the need to share this information with you Visitor 60,000 but I must. I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Perhaps my enemies have been secretly increasing in strength and it is indeed time for me to flee. Maybe my odd sleeping patterns are having an effect. In an effort to be considered to colonize Mars, I’ve recently switched to Martian time. The Martian day is only 39 minutes longer than an Earth day, but I’ve started to think the subtle change is producing unintended effects.

We have a connection you and I, a connection that I intended to have with Visitor 50,000. But like so many things, it wasn’t meant to be. But you and I are different. One day we will travel to the Red Planet…

I can see it now…

Sincerely,

Fergis T. McGillicuddy

Dear Lululemon “Manifesto”

Recently, a bag told me what to do and what to think. I thought it made some ballsy assertions. Though this is obviously a “wall poster,” one can purchase the same misguided philosophy on a “shoulder bag.”

1. Do one thing a day that scares you.

I just tried crack. Does that count? I had to go to a really freaky part of town to buy it.

2. Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to.

What does this even mean? Never end your sentences with a preposition.

3. Life is full of set backs. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks.

This is basically a description of basic economics re-interpreted through the eyes of a new-age marketing department. A sports company could put “the best way to win a game is to score more goals than your opponent” onto their bags. But even hockey players know better.

Here’s some mental jujitsu for you:

4. Don’t trust that an old-age pension will be sufficient. 

Damn right, especially if I’m buying clothes at Lululemon. I better start working 24/7 and my job is so stressful…

5. Stress is related to 99% of illness.

The highly trained medical staff (even the people who take out the garbage at Lululemon have extensive scientific credentials. It’s a little known fact those “yoga studios” are top shelf medical research facilities.) have changed my life! I’m going to quit my job that is obviously conspiring to end my life to do yoga all day. Which will be easy because…

6. Friends are more important than money.

I get it now. I just need to pour my hot bum into a pair of seamless yoga pants and get somebody wealthy enough to pay my way through life. Live Lulu!

7. Listen, listen, listen, and then ask strategic questions.  

Having heard, heard, heard, I’ll ask this question: “Do you actually believe this crap?”

Sincerely,

Fergis T. McGillicuddy

Dear Cough Medicine Jim

Howdy. It’s been a long time. But despite my best efforts we always spend a few days together this time of year. We enjoy some steaming mugs of Neo Citran together, down a Tylenol cough cap and do some DVD-watching. Later, when everything settles down, we listen to some sad music and muse briefly on the nature of the universe. You got some profound insight to share with the world Cough Medicine Jim. But understand our time needs to be short. Any longer and I’d be unable to reintegrate with society.

I’d need to give up my gainful position at the office. Any semblance of an intimate relationship would be obviously unrealistic to pursue. My bank account would slowly dwindle into the red.  I’d eventually succumb beside a lonely dumpster located in downtown Edmonton with a very sticky medicine beard.

When its time to say goodbye, don’t make it harder than it needs to be.

Sincerely,

Fergis

Dear Brett Ratner

It seems as though you took my advice and made Rush Hour 3. Congratulations on that. You, like a Hollywood Nostradamus, were able to predict Chris Tucker’s meteoric rise to celebrity A-list fame and capitalise on it. Who knew he’d be in so many wonderful films since…uh…wait…It turns out Tucker hasn’t been in any movies
since Rush Hour 2. Now that the Rush Hour thrillogy is complete, Tucker will be able to remove the elastic bands you’ve forced him to wear on his scrotum during the last six years. Why else would his eyes be so wide? I bet you kept him in a cage in your basement.

Now he can finally start work on his dream—self-producing/directing /acting an updated adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play A Raisin in the Sun.

“Damn my eggs…damn all the eggs that ever was!” he’ll shout.

I can see it now. It will be glorious.

I think it is prudent to mention that I’ll never see Rush Hour 3 if I can help it. I’ll certainly never pay to see it. I’ve seen the syndicated episodes of Friends that you’ve stolen Rush Hour’s brand of “humour” from.

After X-Men 3: The Last Stand, I thought it was the worst movie I’d seen in a while. So by default, you were the worst director of recent memory. Now, I realize you may be the worst director in history.

So you turned down an opportunity to direct Ocean’s Eleven citing that you’ve got no interest in making “little movies.” Instead, you’d like to remake Ocean’s Eleven with an all-Black cast, with the characters playing janitors instead of thieves. What planet are you from again?

Now I realize my previous advice was wrong. I’ll offer a new piece of advice—please throw all your cameras, director-chairs and crew jackets off a cliff, ensuring you tether something particularly heavy on to your legs beforehand, you evil monster.

As Always,

Fergis T. McGillicuddy

To The Upcoming Simpsons Movie

When I get lonely, I usually find solace in a simple thought. I think to myself, “Someone in North America is watching the Simpsons right now.” Then I think that perhaps a young couple is making love on a couch while a syndicated episode is broadcast with the volume turned low. Then I try to find a channel broadcasting an episode. It never takes long before there is and I leave the television on while I go about my daily routine. Personally, I would never attempt to make love with the Simpsons on television.

In a few minutes, I’ll step out of my house and go to the theatre to see the Simpsons Movie, a film some say has been 12 years overdue. To be honest, I never really thought about a Simpsons movie. I was content to watch reruns and tune in to the occasional fresh episode on Sunday night. Once I heard about it though, the idea of a towering Homer Simpson in a darkened theatre captured my imagination. I began to ponder the possibility that the series could end at any time if one of the core characters vocal actors died. That thought seemed to plague me during countless sleepless nights. So over the past few weeks I’ve been watching reruns nearly every day, usually several times a day—on CBC, Teletoon, and various Fox affiliates.

I, like many of my generation, would be horrified to discover how much time I’ve actually spent watching Simpsons, probably thousands of hours. It’s on right now…The episode where Homer believes the rapture is at hand and meets god.

While most of the population gave up looking forward to new Simpsons a long time ago, this movie is a cultural milestone. It doesn’t even matters if it is good or not. Springfield will exist for two hours on the big screen.

Sincerely,

Fergis T. Mcgillicuddy

Dear Dr. Hoffenblauf

Sometime last week my left eye began twitching involuntarily. It spasms as if a pocket of air is trying to escape. It doesn’t hurt, but is odd to have an eyelid sputtering like a hummingbird.

Somebody told me eye spasms are symptomatic of Iron deficiency, which is likely as my recent diet consists of Cap’n Crunch, Slurpees, Coffee and Irish whiskey. However, from what I’ve read, there is no evidence to link eye twitches to Iron deficiency. Stranger still, many medical experts are at a loss to explain how eye twitches are caused at all. Could it be a voodoo hex? Or aliens beaming their Tivo selections into my brain? The dead attempting communication from the other side?

Please advise,

Fergis McGillicuddy

PS: Please don’t tell me that brain worms are eating their way to the outside world through my peepers. I’d rather have them go through the nasal cavity.

Dear Johan

You know better than anyone follow-through isn’ t my strong suit. I don’t own a single strong suit. However, I own many mediocre trousers.

Fergis

To The Commenter Known As “Superman”

Superman:

There is nothing wrong with US President George Bush and Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper enjoying the benefit of each other’s companies…and military-industrial complexes.

We’ll never know what kind of strange conversations they have behind steel-reinforced doors, and what we don’t know obviously can’t hurt us.

However, what we do know is Mr. Bush refers to Mr. Harper as “Steve.” Nobody on the planet refers to Stephen Harper as “Steve.” Not publicly, at least. Even the Queen of England calls him Stephen.

I believe Mr. Bush shouldn’t call him Stephen…even when Stephen is wearing his zip-up “outside” vest.

Sincerely,

Fergis T. McGillicuddy